In her analysis of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth (1905), scholar Candace Waid observes that the novel depicts the upper classes of New York society as "consumed by the appetite of a soulless ________ an apt assessment given that The House of Mirth is set during the Gilded Age, a period marked by rapid industrialization, economic greed, and widening wealth disparities.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?